How do children respond to tragedy? On an icy road near Chicago, Marianne dies in a crash, leaving Joe and their daughters, Kelly, about 16, and Mary, about 9. That summer, a friend from Joe’s graduate student days, 20 years before, arranges a teaching job for him in Genoa. When they arrive in June, Joe starts teaching and the girls have the summer before school starts: Kelly quickly falls in with youths her age; their club and beach life leads to sexual awakening. Mary, burdened by guilt for her mother’s death, is solitary. The girls take piano lessons, Mary draws, and she also sees and talks to her mother. Joe asks them, “Are you okay?”, but is that enough?

Film Review

Michael Winterbottom is the king of the low budget art house film, but here he goes too far. Genoa is clearly a cheap European city in which to film and it is used as the main backdrop as if the fourth actor along with dad (Colin Firth) and his two daughters. Narrow Medieval streets and alleys, ancient churches and some modest beaches have a level of interest, but too much is drab like the dark apartment where they stay. Of course, as with Winterbottom you get some fabulous depth of emotion between the cast, but the unexceptional settings starts to wear and your attention wanders, rather like the young daughters in the film….

Have you ever done something so terrible that it ruined your life? After a game in the car causes an accident and the death of her mother (Davis), Mary must live with the results. Her and her sister along with their father (Firth) travel to Italy for a year in hopes that the change of scenery will help the grieving process. Each girl handles the life change differently. Based on the preview, I was worried about watching this because it looked so depressing. The first five minutes is very hard to watch, and sporadically there are tough parts, but this is not as bad as I was expecting. The acting was great, and the story is very real, but I just couldn't get into it. It was a little slow moving and seemed to go nowhere. I can't give it a bad grade because it wasn't a bad movie, just a little slow. Not really my kind of show. I know there will be many people who really like it though. I give it a C+.Would I watch again? – I don't think I will, not one to watch over an…

It should seem obvious, but when we are in the thick of parenthood we don't really think of this … there is no guide, no "right" way to be a successful parent. Those of us who are parents (I have 5 children) know it well, we do the best we can at the moment and hope it is the right thing.That is precisely what is going on in this movie. The family, now only 3 of them, lost their wife and mom. Going from what they were to what they will be is a very uncertain path. So dad, a professor in Chicago, decides to take an opportunity to teach in Italy and hoping the change of scenery will help all of them overcome the grief and move on with their lives.Colin Firth is the dad and professor, Joe. The 10-yr-old daughter is Perla Haney-Jardine as Mary. She has guilt feelings, she thinks she was responsible for her mom's death. The 16-yr-old daughter is Willa Holland as Kelly. She probably blames both her dad and her sister for mom's death, and she is at the age where sh…